John Malalas: from computation to narration

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The narrative structure we find at work for the first time in Malalas’ chronicle is not
necessarily unique to him: it is likely that Eusebius’heirs, while adapting and amend-
ing their predecessor’s chronological framework, had already included in their work
narrative elements borrowed from other sources.38
To conclude, although it is mostly impossible to ascribe Malalas’ real sources, the ge-
nerally very loose inclusion of long narrative accounts in a globally thorough chrono-
logical framework suggests that the chronicler integrated to his work all the literature
available to him. The similarities between some of his accounts and those of Hesychius
(in what remains to us of his universal history under the name of Patria), indicates that
the Chronicle does not pertain to one genre. It does not refrain from resorting to very
diverse sources which it claims to compile. The chronicler likes to intermingle legend
and history and to incorporate accounts, sometimes complex in their composition.
This practice presumably suits his tastes and interests, but also betrays his ambition to
gather all documents available to him.
Bibliography
Primary sources
Julius Africanus, Chronographiae. The Extant Fragments, ed. Μ. Walraff/U. Roberto/K. Pinguerra,
Berlin 2007
Cedrenus, Georgius Cedrenus, ed. I. Bekker, vol. 1 (CSHB), Bonn 1838
Eusebius, Eusebe, Histoire Ecclesiastique, ed. G. Bardy, Paris 1955
Eusebius, Eusebius Werke, 5. Band. Die Chronik aus dem Armenischen übersetzt., ed. J. Karst (GCS
20), Leipzig, 1911
Eusebius, Eusebius Werke, 7. Band. Die Chronik des Hieronymus, ed. R. Helm (GCS 47), Berlin 1956
Malalas, loannis Malalae Chronographia, ed. I. Thurn (CFHB 35), Berlin 2000
Jeffreys E./Jeffreys M./Scott R. et alii (eds.), The Chronicle of John Malalas (Byzantina Australiensia
4), Melbourne 1986
Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century. The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, ed. A. Cameron/J.
Herrin , Leiden 1984
Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed. T. Preger, 2 vols., Leipzig 1901-7
Theosophorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. H. Erbse, Stuttgart 1995
Secondary Literature
Adler, W., Time immemorial. Archaic History and its sources in Christian Chronography from Julius
Africanus to George Syncellus, Washington 1989
Bernardi, A.-M., “Tiresias le philosophe” (Jean Malalas II, 14), in A. Balansard/G. Dorival/M.
Loubet (eeds.), Les prolongements et renouvellement de la tradition classique, hommage a Didier
Pralon, PUP, Aix-en-Provence 2011, pp. 249-262
38 See Adler, Time immemorial, ch. 3, pp. 72-105 (about Panodoros et Annianos) and Croke, “The early
development of Byzantine chronicles”, pp. 32-36.